At least two people are dead, hundreds of buildings have burned and tens of thousands of Southern Californians remain under evacuation orders after fast-moving wildfires exploded in the Los Angeles area Tuesday.
Fueled by powerful Santa Ana winds and dry conditions, two of the most dangerous blazes — the Eaton Fire and the Palisades Fire — had roared across more than 7,000 acres in and around Pasadena and the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles by Wednesday, fire officials said.
Harrowing images showed homes fully engulfed in flames and reduced to rubble. Other pictures showed people fleeing on foot.
A resident described the scene to NBC Los Angeles after her escape as “apocalyptic.”
Nearly 70,000 people were under orders to flee their homes across a wide swath of the region, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Morone told reporters Wednesday.
Morone attributed the two deaths to the Eaton Fire, which erupted Tuesday night. There were a significant number of injuries, he said, and more than a hundred buildings had burned.
More than 1,000 buildings and homes had been destroyed in the Palisades Fire, which ignited Tuesday morning, the chief said.
A combined 20,000 structures remain under threat, Morone said.
